


After the End of the World

by effloradox



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, Humor, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 13:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18895438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/effloradox/pseuds/effloradox
Summary: The end times have been and gone and that leaves Crowley and Aziraphale to do whatever they want. Unsurprisingly, that involves dinner at The Ritz.





	After the End of the World

It was a quiet day in the shop. After the fire had raged through the shop six months ago during the apocalypse, business had been relatively quiet (not that it had ever been overtly busy of course) but once his collection was different, Aziraphale found that the usual customers that tried to buy his books were more reluctant to come and browse what he had in stock and he was, overall, much happier with how the business¹ was going.

He would be the first to admit that it had been a long couple of months with him and Crowley trying to restore the shop to its former glory after all his original first editions had been burned and the replacements...weren’t quite what Aziraphale had wanted. But, his faith in the ineffable was finally starting to pay off as he’d started to find some more first editions that had been part of his original collection and eventually after a year or two he would have his initial collection restored hopefully.

Crowley. Aziraphale’s mind stopped at the thought of the demon. He’d been so helpful over the last few months, if Aziraphale didn’t know any better he’d say that he had been something of an angel trying to help him with the shop. Funny, they’d spent almost 6 thousand years being adversaries but now the apocalypse had been prevented, the higher powers didn’t seem to care about whether Aziraphale associated with a demon anymore². It was almost refreshing to be able to acknowledge that he and Crowley were friends, it had always been there he supposed, but now they could finally acknowledge it.

Aziraphale glanced at the clock on the wall. Three twenty-five. Almost time to close the shop. He had plans with Crowley tonight, they’d booked a table at the Ritz for four thirty³ and then they were going to St James’s Park to feed their ducks. There was more of them now, it was interesting to see all these lives that wouldn’t have existed if the apocalypse hadn’t been reversed by Adam. That reminded him, they must go and see how Anathema and Newt were, the poor dear had been in quite a state in the weeks after the apocalypse had taken place and he wanted to see if she had adjusted to living without the prophecies and apologise again for taking the copy of Agnes’s book but it was for the greater good; hopefully, she would understand. The sound of Queen playing loudly snapped him from his thoughts as he saw the original 1926 black Bentley that he’d grown familiar with pull up outside the shop. He watched as his a̶d̶v̶e̶r̶s̶...no his friend got out of the car and made his way into the shop.

“Well if it isn’t my favourite customer.” Crowley gave him a devilish smile and took his sunglasses off as he made his way across the room towards the till. He hadn’t changed in the six months since they become friends officially, he was still the sarcastic demon he had always been but he was reliable and it was nice to be around someone who wasn’t a human and could see the bigger picture, even if he had a slightly different perspective of it⁴.

“How’s business been angel?” Crowley leaned on the till with a level of effortlessness only achieved through an excessive amount of effort. His eyes, no longer hidden by the dark sunglasses he wore in public⁵, drifted around the shop slowly and then stopped on Aziraphale.

“As good as usual, I had to turn away a charming young man this morning, he wanted to buy my _Jack Cade_ and I couldn’t bear to part with it.” Crowley let out a laugh at the angel’s honest response. It came with no surprise to him that the customer had left empty-handed, it was rare for customers to actually leave the shop with a purchase. It was only if Aziraphale was truly desperate that he would consider selling something from his collection.

“Oh well I’m sure you wouldn’t have a problem with closing up early to see if we can get an earlier table at the Ritz, I do still owe you for the Reign of Terror don’t I?” Crowley smirked at the angel.

“Don’t try and tempt me, you old serpent. I barely open the shop as it is, I can’t go against the minimal opening times that I’ve followed for all these years.” Crowley groaned at the angel’s response. Following the rules had never been something that came naturally to Crowley, unless it was coming from one of his superiors he didn’t really see the point. He’d already Fallen, there wasn’t much point trying to do good now.

“Oh come on. How about this angel, if you close up now I’ll buy you sushi.” The pained expression on the angel’s face was almost laughable. After knowing each other for six millennia, it was very apparent that Crowley knew Aziraphale’s weak spots and he was a demon, tempting people was part of his job description⁶ and he was awfully good at his job. Crowley could almost see the thought process going through Aziraphale’s head as he struggled to fight the temptation to take Crowley up on his offer. Finally, the internal debate seemed to end.

“I’ll stay open for another ten minutes. I’m sure if someone wanted to pop in they’ll be here by then and then I can close up for the day.” Crowley rolled his eyes but it was more theatrical than serious annoyance. He hadn’t expected the angel to take him up on his offer but he could try and tempt him. That was his plan if anyone from Hell tried to question why he had spent so much time with Aziraphale over the past six months since now the Arrangement had technically ended so, in reality, he had no business spending any time with him. Saying that he was trying to tempt an angel would gain him a lot of credibility in Hell, even if he had no real intention of trying to make Aziraphale Fall. He would never hear the end of it and it would probably be a very sudden end to their friendship and after six thousand years of being around each other, Crowley was aware that he would probably miss the angel if anything were to happen to him⁷. Instead of voicing this, he settled for giving a dramatic sign.

“If you insist then. I got a new tape for the car, it’s been under two weeks since I bought it so hopefully, we should be able to actually listen to what I intended to hear when I purchased it.” Aziraphale nodded.

“As long as it’s not be-bop again, that tape you had in last time we went to the Ritz was dreadful.” Crowley sneered slightly at Aziraphale’s comment.

“You are the only thing on earth that could insult Fleetwood Mac like that and not be directly sent to Hell.” Aziraphale rolled his eyes at his friend’s comment. Their music taste had always differed with Aziraphale preferring classical music to whatever was in the popular culture of the time whereas Crowley was slightly more with the times⁸ even if his more recent knowledge still left something to be desired.

“Well, are you ready? We might as well close the shop and set out now if we want to try and get into central London in time for our reservation and no, we’re not going to be speeding down Oxford Street at 90mph. You have to follow some of the human’s rules now that the apocalypse isn’t imminent. We can’t create suspicion.” Crowley absentmindedly nodded at this but deep down, both the angel and the demon knew that he would not be paying any attention to what Aziraphale had just said and the odds were that in twenty minutes they would speeding through central London in a way that humans could only dream of doing and not getting arrested for or ending up driving into the back of a double-decker bus.

“Yeah, yeah, sure thing angel. Whatever you want.” Crowley’s attention had, at this point, moved away from Aziraphale’s lecture about his less-than-safe driving habits to the person outside the shop that seemed rather…eager to get inside. The demon started to panic, Aziraphale couldn’t resist having a long, drawn-out conversation with any want-to-be customer and if someone came in now, there would be no way they would get there on time for their reservation. “Soooooo, are you okay closing up now angel? I can change the sign on the door for you if you want to grab your coat. Okay, you go and do that and I’ll close up for you, sound good?” Crowley was aware that his voice had increasingly started to speed up, revealing the increasing panic, but Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice and just nodded. Crowley waited for him to leave the room before leaping at the door and turning the sign on the door to say ‘Closed’. The customer was only a few steps away from the door and Crowley gave a half-arsed gesture of apology with his hand but the smirk on his face portrayed his true emotions. It did still feel good causing chaos with humans, as long as Aziraphale didn’t find out about it some of the time anyway. It wasn’t worth the lectures about goodness and ineffability and Crowley couldn’t stand the look of disappointment in Aziraphale’s eyes when he knew Crowley had done something less than saint-like⁹.

Aziraphale came back into the room fixing the collar of his coat. “Now my dear boy, are you ready to go now?” He moved towards the door and held it open, giving Crowley a look that he couldn’t quite identify. “Get thee behind me foul field.” Crowley stared at him for a second, uncertain what the heaven¹⁰ was happening. It was silent for a few seconds until Aziraphale’s usual charming smile returned to his face and he made a slight gesture towards the door, his eyes twinkling. “After you.”

Crowley walked towards the Bentley, opening Aziraphale’s door and then walking round to the driver’s side and sliding into the car. He watched through the mirror as Aziraphale put the alarm on in the shop and locked the door. He made his way over to the car and got in next to Crowley. “Thank you for opening the door for me dear boy. Very kind of you.” Crowley nodded and waited for the angel to put his seatbelt on before switching on the engine. He could almost feel the anxiety radiating off Aziraphale as he put his foot down on the accelerator. He smirked as he put the car into gear and the two of them shot down the road at 80mph.

* * *

¹ If you could even call it a business anyway, Aziraphale had finally (and reluctantly) accepted that his bookstore was more of a storage area than a shop at this point but by all technicalities (and his tax records (which were still scrupulously accurate to the surprise of the tax authorities)) it was indeed a book shop.

² They were too busy reeling from the fact that they wouldn’t get to prove that they were superior to the Fallen ones in the war to end all wars anymore and the last that Aziraphale had heard was that an increasing number of angels had started to question the ineffable plan which had kept Gabriel too busy to really care about what a Principality was doing on earth anymore.

³ A habit that they had gotten into since the apocalypse in the hopes of averting any suspicion the staff there had about how the two of them always managed to find an empty table in one of the busiest restaurants in the country, even if they still used a bit of divine influence to ensure that they could actually reserve a table whenever they wanted to and at relatively short notice.

⁴ It was taking a bit of time to try and adjust Crowley’s perspective on some things to make them more human tolerable but Aziraphale was happy with the progress he was making. He _knew_ there was some good in Crowley and he was happy to see it coming out sometimes, even if he was still torturing humans at least it wouldn’t be to the same extent as when he had created the M25.

⁵ Sometimes he liked to pretend that he was blind and see how long he could keep up the facade but he got bored of it after an hour or so. People were too nice to him when he hit them with his stick, it wasn’t fun once people started doing that.

⁶ Admittedly he was meant to be tempting humans into choosing to sin rather than tempting an angel to close his book shop half an hour early but Crowley figured it was the same basic concept. It might even look more impressive that he tempted an angel into doing something not quite sinful but something that definitely wasn’t something the angel would choose to do of his own accord.

⁷ Not that he would ever admit this to Aziraphale (or anyone for that matter), he had a reputation to uphold after all. A demon that would be willing to acknowledge that he would miss anyone, let alone an angel, his adversary, if something were to happen to him wasn’t someone many people would take seriously.

⁸ Saying this, he was still a decade or two behind with popular culture, he was rather enjoying watching Top of the Pops on his new television but he was enjoying the music that came with the passing of the 1970s, as long as it wasn’t Queen. Anything but Queen. He was sick of Queen now.

⁹ It metaphorically killed him seeing that look on Aziraphale’s face. That simpering look of disappointment resting in his very being, the slight furrowing of his eyebrows, the way his entire aura just seemed to drop, it made him feel so bad and he hated feeling bad. He’s a demon for God’s sake (excuse his French), he shouldn’t have to feel bad for doing what he was told to by down below.

¹⁰ Forgive his language.


End file.
